[Reeses]

Apparently more people are leaving from the socialist utopia of Europe for America than are going the other way. If you average the load for both directions the carbon foot print is reasonable. A normally loaded airliner going at 500mph gets much better gas mileage and lower CO2 emissions per passenger than a Toyota Prius on meandering roads at 50mph.

[Moose4]

If you look at it in terms of passenger-miles, the airplane is much more economical. CSX, the railroad, is actually running some very good commercials around here in which they state that while a hybrid that gets 50 mpg is nice, their trains can haul one ton of cargo 423 miles on one gallon of fuel. The locomotive doesn’t get 423 mpg, of course, but with hundreds or thousands of tons pulled along behind, it becomes extremely efficient.

}:-)4